


flowers bloom until they rot

by lookoutlouie



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Lauri gets a girlfriend eventually because she deserves it, M/M, Multi, Suicidal Thoughts, really be putting the hurt in hurt/comfort huh, the apocalypse au no one asked for, there's triggering stuff please read the notes before each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23356048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookoutlouie/pseuds/lookoutlouie
Summary: He couldn’t remember exactly how it had started, but it was the end of the world.Or,The apocalypse au literally no one asked for.
Relationships: Tom Blake & William Schofield, Tom Blake/William Schofield
Comments: 22
Kudos: 43





	1. Three years

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so! I am not English and almost all of my knowledge of England (especially the roads/landscape/biodiversity) comes from google maps. Anyway, I hope the American in me doesn't jump out too much. Shoutout to the 2nd Devon's discord for their love and support and to Amelia for reading it over and fueling my terrible decisions.  
> Title of the fic is from the song "Flowers" from the musical Hadestown because I am a nerd.  
> TRIGGER WARNING for this chapter: non descriptive mentions of death, mentions of illness, suicidal thoughts, depression, general violence. I will make sure to include warnings in the notes before each chapter.

He couldn’t remember exactly how it had started, but it was the end of the world. A terrible illness swept the entire planet, attaching onto its host and draining all the life it could, before moving on to its next unfortunate victim. Within a month, it burnt itself out, the streets filled with more dead than living, and there was barely anyone left to pass it on. No more hoards of plump ecosystems to make more people spit up blood. But the damage was done.

Schofield had watched, terrified, as it all unfolded before him. First from a tv screen, then from his apartment window. He had followed the general advice of the news stations: stay inside. Don’t get infected. Simple. So he stocked up on ramen, locked his door, and spent the better half of a month biting on his fingernails and pacing his small apartment.

After a while, things were hauntingly quiet outside. None of the beeping cars and chattering pedestrians, the telltale signs of urban life in London. And none of the screams and crashes that Schofield had become uncomfortably comfortable with during the recent weeks. It seemed like even the trees had their life sucked out of them, their branches bare and dark against the overcast sky. 

He didn’t know why he had been spared, didn’t know why he wasn’t just another corpse rotting on the sidewalk. Maybe he was lucky.

After another month he didn’t think so.

He spent less and less time eating, and more time just staring off into space. Schofield tried to say in a routine, he really did. Three meals a day, at least eight hours of sleep. He thought if he could go through the motions of life, he could trick himself back into living. But he couldn’t. He stopped brushing his teeth, stopped getting dressed, stopped opening the fucking curtains because he didn’t want to see what was outside. It wouldn’t make a difference. 

He covered the mirror in his bathroom because he couldn’t bear the sight of his own face in the dirty glass. How could he look the same when the entire world had gone to hell? Why was he still alive? Someone else should have taken his place, he didn’t deserve to sit here in his apartment, wasting his days like life wasn’t a rare thing.

Something inside him couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand living when almost everyone else was dead. Sometimes, during the really quiet nights, he wondered if anyone was left. Wondered if he was the last living person in London, or England, or the entire fucking world. The loneliness seeped in, through the cracks in his walls and the spaces between window panes. Sometimes he couldn’t deal with it, thought of slitting his wrists or swallowing every single pill in his apartment.

Other times the feeling turned to anger, at the world for doing this to him. On an unusually sunny day Schofield had stared outside, and a coursing rage bubbled up inside him and without thinking he punched the wall. The plaster cracked a bit under his fist but didn’t crumble. His fingers hurt like hell but didn’t bleed. He couldn’t keep living like this.

One day, he decided enough was enough. Packed a backpack full of his possessions: his wallet, a change of clothes, a well worn copy of The Odyssey, three cans of soup, and a picture frame of his sister and two nieces. He tucked a kitchen knife to his coat pocket and for the first time in months, left his apartment. Schofield knew he would never return, and he was okay with that.

He had walked, walked for miles upon miles, because it seemed like there was nothing else to do. He walked north, out of London, for no other reason than he wanted to see how far he could go before dying. It was better to die walking than by starving in his apartment or slashing his own wrists. So he walked.

He didn’t have a direction at first, was just aimlessly wandering the city streets. But London wasn’t as empty as he had thought, and every encounter with someone else left him in worse shape than he had been before. Schofield had barely made it out of London alive, leaving most of his valuables and several fingers behind in that godawful city. He remembered the gray days when he wondered if he was the only person left, and for the first time (but certainly not the last), wished that it was true.

He picked up a few things along the way as well. A hunting rifle, a habit of walking silently, and an acceptance of an empty stomach. Schofield followed the roads, wandering on the long stretches of tar, rifle in hand. Ears pricked, eyes darting at any sudden movement.

He used the sun to make sure he was still heading north, still heading towards _somewhere_ . Somewhere that wasn’t _here_ , wasn’t littered with rusting cars and rotting corpses, because here fucking sucked.

And one day he reached the sea. He wasn’t quite sure where, but a sign down the road had said Donna Nook, and even though he had never heard of it before, it seemed alright. Rectangular plots of farmland, grass growing long now that they were untended, stretched on in all directions until suddenly Schofield saw the glittering blue of the water. This was North.

That night he slept in an abandoned house with a pointed roof and all the walls inside were painted overcast gray. In the beginning of his journey, Schofield had felt wrong in someone else’s house, felt guilty sleeping in someone else’s bed. He stopped caring after a while. Dead people didn’t sleep on beds that were still tucked in, didn’t eat the cans of soup nestled in their pantry, didn’t fucking care because they were dead.

That night the wind ripped through the house. Schofield had never truly understood why people described the wind howling like a person, until he heard a shrill scream at night, half whistle and half shriek. He had jumped up, hands on his rifle, and had checked every single room in the house for the person making that blood-chilling noise. He found no one. After two hours of sitting in the corner of a bedroom, knuckles white against the trigger, did he realize it was the wind. He left Dona Nook the second the sun peeked over the horizon.

Schofield decided that he would follow the coast south east, and walk as long as he could. Maybe he could make it to Brighton. Maybe even Wales, if he was lucky enough, fuck it, maybe even all the way to the northeast point of Scotland where there are tall hills standing against the crashing waves of the ocean. He could stand up on them and just _yell_ , or cry, or jump off and land like a feather finally coming to rest upon the ground. It was better to kill yourself in Scotland than in England, right? He started walking again.

\--------------- three years later

Schofield opened his eyes to darkness. He was usually a light sleeper, and was on edge as he slowly sat up, ears pricked. What had woken him up? The abandoned house he was crashing in was bathed in silence, a paper thin silence that felt like the wrong breath or movement would cause the whole building to collapse. 

A crash, a muttered curse. Someone was downstairs.

Schofield slowly got out of bed and grabbed his knife from the bedside table, gripping it in his good hand. A second thought, he fumbled around in the near darkness and found his rifle, lying dormant next to his backpack. He had ran out of bullets months ago, but had kept the thing around in case he somehow found more. But the person downstairs didn’t know that, and a gun was a powerful thing to have.

He crept out of the room and quietly down a flight of stairs, shifting his weight only when his foot was fully planted to avoid any noise that would alert the intruder to his presence. Schofield rounded a corner and saw a beam of light in the kitchen. He crept closer.

There was a figure, holding a large flashlight. The figure bent down and started to go through the kitchen drawers, pulling out things that looked useful and placing them in a bag by the figure’s feet. Schofield could not see any weapons on them, but knew that they were armed. Only a fool would break into an unknown building without being armed to the teeth, or at least holding a knife the entire time.

He stepped closer to the figure and a floorboard gave a particular nasty creak, stopping the figure dead in their tracks.

“Stay where you are.” Schofield said, and the words felt clumsy from disuse. A small part of him wondered when the last time he spoke to someone was. “Hands up.”

The figure lifted up their hands slowly. Schofield noticed the right one was holding the flashlight. The left one is empty. The figure carefully turned around, and Schofield got the first good look at the intruder. He, and for some reason Schofield knew the figure was a he, was short and a little stocky. His face was cloaked in shadow, the beam of the flashlight pointing down at his boots.

Schofield gestured with his rifle. “Weapons.” The man, no, wait, the _young_ man took a step back.

“I’m unarmed,” he said in a wavering voice. Christ, he sounded young, probably younger than Schofield himself. “Fuck, no, I mean, there’s a knife in my right pocket… but I’m not going to use it or anything! My hands are up! See!” He gestured with his hands to make his point, and the flashlight fell from his hands. It bounced off of the floor with a _thunk_ , and spun until it finally found rest. Its beam shone up on the ceiling and bounced light off of Schofield and the figure in front of him.

Schofield stepped closer and the young man countered, moving backwards until his back pressed against the kitchen counter. Schofield pressed closer and, keeping his rifle pointed at the man’s chest, dug around in the intruder’s right pocket before finding a small hunting knife, which he tucked into his own belt. The man did not move, and Schofield didn’t lower his gun. 

“Are there others?” he asked, his face suddenly too close to the other man. He wanted to step back, he felt intensely uncomfortable being this close. When was the last time he was this close to another living, breathing, heart still beating person? He didn’t know. But pulling away would make him look weak. Schofield was not weak. He pressed his useless, empty gun into the man’s stomach and asked again, harsher. “Are there others?”

The young man shook his head, and Schofield was finally able to get a good look at his face. He was definitely younger than him, by a few years at least. He looked tired, and there was soot smudged on his face. His eyes were wide, and frightened, but Schofield saw something confusing in them. Hope. Hope that maybe Schofield would put down his rifle and let him go on his merry way, because this man thought that they were both still people, still human.

“Please, you have to believe me,” said the man, filling the tense silence the only way he knew how. “I’m just here to see if there was some food or anything useful… haven’t eaten in days, you know how it is… I’ve been alone ever since my brother…” he trailed off, realizing he said too much. “Anyway, I’m alone, and unarmed, and I just want to stay alive, you know?”

The young man looked at Schofield for the first time, really looked into his eyes. The hope that Schofield had seen earlier was almost all gone, replaced with pure terror. He had reached out to Schofield for mercy, empathy, and Schofield had not shown any. Something in the young man’s gaze was rebellious though, something in the way he set his jaw seemed as if he was trying to ready himself for death. He wouldn’t be afraid. But still, he pleaded, reached out one last time. “Please, I don’t want to die.”

Something unspoken passed between the two of them, something tugging on the last parts of Schofield’s humanity, something he thought he had lost three years ago when the bodies started to drop. Maybe he still had a little humanity left. Was that what hope was?

“Please.”


	2. A few nights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo! Here is chapter 2! Btw, time between uploading a new chapter is really inconsistent, so sorry about that but it be like that sometimes.  
> Huge shoutout to Alice, Nev, and Maddie for putting up with my ramblings about Schofield and Tom. I appreciate it :)  
> Trigger warnings: violence (kind of a given tbh), nightmares, mention of previous abuse/violence, mention of previous sexual assault (very very brief not descriptive at all but. it's there just wanna warn y'all)  
> Yes i use too many comas NO it's none of your business. Anyway. Enjoy the bropocalypse where everyone represses their feelings.

Schofield lowered his weapon and stepped away. “Fine.” He wasn’t a killer, not if he didn’t have to be.

The young man looked relieved, but still distrustful. “Wait, really? Why?”

Schofield stared at him. _Why?_ He asked _why_? Was it not enough for this guy to count his blessings and get the fuck out?

“Why do you care?” Schofield snapped back.

“I…” the man trailed off, unsure how to continue. “I don’t know. It’s just, you meet such terrible people out here and, well, I honestly didn’t peg you as the mercy type.” A thought dawned on him and he looked down at his feet. “Unless…”

Schofield didn’t let him finish that thought. “No. Absolutely not.” There were people out there, who would rather find someone alive than dead. Sick people, who would keep the unfortunate as slaves, as punching bags, as someone they could do whatever they wanted with. There were people like that in London, people with knives, people who had found him. Schofield didn’t like to think about it.

The man nodded and after a pause, held out his hand. “I’m Tom. Tom Blake.”

Schofield didn’t want to touch the man, touch _Tom_. He settled with walking to the kitchen table and sitting down, resting his rifle on his chair. “Schofield.” It wasn’t a handshake, but Tom understood. A truce, at least for now.

“I’m so sorry but… do you have anything to eat?” Tom didn’t look Schofield in the eye, worried about crossing a line. Schofield could tell that Tom still didn’t feel comfortable around him, but he would rather stay with Schofield than be kicked out.

Schofield nodded and gestured to a cabinet. Tom opened it and was greeted by a few cans of non-perishables. He selected a can of some sort of tomato soup and rummaged through a few more cabinets until he found a drawer full of silverware. He selected a spoon and sat down across the table from Schofield.

“That’s so fucked up, right?” Tom asked, gesturing at the kitchen drawers. “They just… I don’t know... all their stuff is still here, all their silverware lined up in nice little piles in their proper places, all their food still in the kitchen, and they’ll never come back home.”

Schofield shrugged. People died and left their houses and their food and their silverware, and they weren’t around anymore to use it. That was a reality he had dealt with a long time ago. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Hey uh, can I have my knife back?” Tom asked him.

“Why?”

“To open the can.”

Did Schofield trust Tom enough to give him his knife back? Absolutely not. It’s not like he thought the guy would outright stab him at the kitchen table, but still. Tom seemed nice enough, but nice people could still do terrible things. And Schofield could be wrong about his new companion’s demeanor. It certainly wasn’t worth the risk.

“Give it to me, I’ll do it.” Schofield said, taking out Tom’s knife.

Tom frowned but slid the can of soup across the table to Schofield. He sloppily cut around the edges of the can, leaving a little part uncut, and pulled up the lid. He carefully handed back the can. Making sure not to touch Tom’s hand as he took the can back.

“Thanks.” Tom said, and pried the top off of the can. Tom then dug into the can of soup, barely stopping to breathe. Schofield remembered Tom saying something about how he hadn’t eaten in days. He had said something about being alone, something about a brother… but that was not Schofield’s business. The only things about this man that concerned Schofield were how much of his food Tom ate and what he did with his knife. Anything else didn’t matter. He didn’t, he fucking _couldn’t_ , care about Tom. Not when it was the end of the world. It was stupid to think he could.

\---------------

Schofield didn’t sleep that night. Tom slept in the room across the hall from Schofield’s, pilling up a few old blankets to act as a bed. Schofield didn’t know how much rest Tom actually got, but sometime that night he had heard a light snoring coming from his room. Schofield himself stayed sitting the entire night by the door, his bed untouched, knife in hand. He sat vigilant until dawn broke through the dirty windows, on edge and just _waiting_ for Tom to do something. He didn’t know what, but everyone else he had met had either tried to kill him or fuck him. Maybe Tom was different. And maybe given the opportunity, he would stab Schofield in the back and steal his shit. Schofield wasn’t sure he liked those odds.

A wood panel creaked across the hall, jogging Schofield out of his thoughts. It was morning, and Tom was awake. Schofield got up slowly, groggy and with a bad headache already. Yes, it had been smart to be on guard instead of sleeping, but he felt the exhaustion slowly creeping over him. Schofield shook his head and started to assemble his gear, which he always placed right next to where he slept.

First he slipped on his jacket, placing his knife into its assigned spot in the inner lining. His jacket was a trench coat he had found after he escaped London, and it had served him well. Schofield had added pieces of hard plastic and metal to various parts of it, protecting his arms and torso after a run-in with some jackass sniper. The edges of the jacket were burnt and the elbows were torn, and it was slowly losing what vague green color it had, and Schofield would be a fool to part with it.

He grabbed his bag, his wonderful bag that he had carried with him from the beginning. It was a large khaki colored backpack, and he had modified it quite a lot, but now it had straps to hold his rifle and various sharp things that could be used as weapons.

Schofield always slept with his shoes and gloves on.

The door across the hall from him swung open and Tom stepped out, shouldering a small pack. He gave a small smile to Schofield, who quickly got up and shouldered his bag.

“Good morning, Scho,” Tom said, and then winced. “Shit, is that okay so call you that? Schofield is a fucking mouthful. But not that there’s anything wrong with it, of course.”

Schofield just stared at him. He was too tired for this shit. He shrugged with indifference and Tom smiled, a real fucking smile, and headed downstairs. Tom’s feet echoed as he clambered down the stairs, and Schofield inwardly winced. He was so _loud_ , so _careless_ about his actions. Schofield followed him down the stairs _quietly_ , footsteps soft.

“Hey,” Tom said as Schofield reached the kitchen. “Are you going to take the food in the cabinets? I mean, is it yours? I’m out of supplies and if you could spare a can or two… I would really appreciate it.” The food in the cabinets… shit. Schofield had almost forgotten about them after the eventful night he had. He too was running out of supplies but there would be more places. 

“We can share.” Schofield said, and Tom immediately took a can of beans and started to dig in. As he ate, Schofield sorted the rest of the food, putting half in his backpack. Tom followed suit, stuffing the cans inside his bag and zipppering it up with a flourish.

“So, what’s next?” Tom asked, and Schofield’s mind went blank. What _was_ next? Did they part their separate way, and forget about the experience? That would seem to be the obvious solution. Walk away and live another day. But Tom had other plans.

“Can uh, can I come with you?” he asked. Schofield could see how much Tom wanted him to say yes, to not be alone on the road until he bled out or starved to death. It was a nice thought, but Schofield was afraid. Afraid of being so close to another person, having to trust them day in and day out, even if that person was Tom.

“I….. I don’t,” he stuttered, voice suddenly not working. It was too much too soon.

“Please, let me come with you!” Tom was so fucking insistant, so desperate. He didn’t want to be alone again. But Schofield couldn’t deal with him, couldn’t deal with relying on someone else, having to look out for someone else. What if Tom died, what if Tom got hurt what if Tom hurt him _what if Tom hurt him_? He shook his head and started to walk out of the room.

“Wait!” Tom grabbed his arm, trying to get Schofield to stay. Tom had barely squeezed his hand, had barely even _touched_ him, but the sudden touch made Schofield gasp.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Schofield yelled and pulled his arm away from Tom. He was reeling from Tom grabbing him, trying to ignore the thoughts of _hands on him_ , trying to pull himself back to reality. Tom was speaking but Schofield couldn’t hear what he was saying, couldn’t process the words. It was too much. And he could feel them, phantom hands of the past reaching out to caress his body, his arms his chest his head and he couldn’t fucking _breathe_. He slowly sat down to the floor, his legs unable to carry his weight. His arms were shaking, and he wrapped them around himself, curling into a little ball. He felt his eyes grow wet with tears and quickly shut them tight. Somewhere in his brain a thought was screaming that he was exposing himself, that he was vulnerable to Tom, but he just couldn’t move. 

“Hey, hey it’s okay,” Tom was speaking close by, somewhere to his right. He didn’t touch Schofield. “You’re okay. Just uh, just breathe, okay? Just breathe.” So Schofield took in some fucking breaths, keeping his eyes shut tight out of fear that if he opened them, he would begin to cry. He couldn’t cry in front of Tom. He just needed to breathe, needed to calm the writhing panic building up inside him. No, no he needed to fucking snap out of it. He needed to use his fucking brain because he wasn’t allowed to have breakdowns, wasn’t allowed to expose himself like this. It went against all his survival experience, but he couldn’t control it.

“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you. I am so sorry Scho, I’m so sorry. It’s okay, it’s all good. Everything is all good.” Tom spoke to him in a calming tone. So Schofield breathed, one breath in, and one breath out. Breathed deeply until his head stopped ringing and he stopped shaking.

“Schofield?” Tom asked again, and Schofield was ready to answer.

“I’m okay.” he breathed out, finally opening his eyes. He was crying. He quickly wiped at his eyes, hoping Tom hadn’t seen.

“Schofield, I am _so_ sorry,” Tom said, and Schofield knew he meant it. Schofield nodded dumbly and stood up, not looking at Tom.

“Let’s go.” he said. Better to forget that this had ever happened and move on. 

Tom turned his head at the sound of Schofield’s voice, surprised. He stood up. “Wait, really? You’re letting me come with you?”

“Sure.” Fuck it. Schofield didn’t think he could shake off Tom Blake even if he tried, and even if he couldn’t shut up, he seemed to be kind. That had to count for _something_ , didn’t it?

The other man let out a sign of relief. “Thanks. It’s… well, it’s not good to be out here alone, you know?” Schofield wouldn’t know, he had always been alone, had never known what it was like surviving with someone else. He decided he would keep an eye out but take his chances traveling with Tom, at least for a short time.

“Wait. There are rules.” Schofield said. He wanted to make sure they were both on the same page. “Don’t touch me, or my stuff. Don’t stab or shoot me in my sleep. Or I’ll fucking kill you. Got it?” Tom nodded, processing the very small list of things that mattered to Schofield. He hoped his underlying message went unnoticed, that Tom would just accept what he said and not think about _why_. _Don’t hurt me_.

“I think those are the most words you’ve said to me since we met.” Tom said with a smirk, trying his best to lighten the mood. “Where are we headed?”

“North.”

Tom nodded and they headed out, walking side by side. They walked from the house, down the small gravel path, to the road. They started walking North, silent except for the soft echo of their shoes against the worn pavement.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, Tom tried a few times to initiate a conversation, which Schofield shut down with disinterred one word answers. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but then again, he never really was. Eventually Tom gave up and started humming, and though Schofield didn’t recognize the tune, it was nice. There was no wind and the sky was dotted with clouds but otherwise blue. A nice change from the winter dreariness that had plagued the countryside the week before. Schofield thought he might have heard a bird sing.

“Shhh!” Tom whispered, stopping in the middle of the road. “Do you hear that?”

Schofield stopped walking and listened, listened to the dismal sounds of the English countryside and the sound of quiet chatter down the road. People, at least three from the sound of them “Hide. Quickly. Down there.” Schofield pointed to the side of the road, where the ground sloped down until it met the treeline.

The two of them scrambled down into a small ditch littered with dead underbrush and ran towards the treeline, not stopping until there was an incline and quite a few trees between them and the road. Schofield pressed himself to the side of a tree and Tom copied him, both of them doing their best to stay out of sight. They couldn’t be caught, they couldn’t. Schofield hated these moments, these moments where everything in his body screamed _run! Run for your fucking life!_ But that wouldn’t be smart, and Schofield had to be smart. Hide, and wait.

They were silent as they listened to the voices. There were a few of them, but Schofield couldn’t quite make out how many. His heart was thundering in his ears and his breath was fast and short. Tom glanced at him, noticing something was wrong. 

“Did you see where those fuckers went?” someone on the road called out, and Tom’s eyes widened in fear. They had been spotted on the road, and the group knew there were close by. Schofield closed his eyes and focused on breathing. He had to calm down, had to assess the situation. Breathe in, breathe out. Be smart. Schofield opened his eyes and slid a knife from its place on his shoulder. He gripped the handle hard, his knuckles turning white. Maybe the group hadn’t seen them, but if they had, he wasn’t sure if he and Tom could fight their way out. And Tom didn’t even have a weapon. If worse came to worst, would Tom fight beside him or stab him in the back and leave him in the dirt for the scavengers?

Schofield looked at Tom’s frightened but determined face, and saw how he stared back. They were in this together. Schofield took a deep breath and gently uncurled his fingers from around his knife. He dug in his jacket pocket and produced Tom’s hunting knife and held it out between them. _I trust you_. Tom nodded and took the knife, careful not to touch Schofield’s hand as he did it.

“No,” said another voice, jogging the two out of their moment. “But they can’t be far. Let’s keep moving.”

Schofield and Tom crouched down further as the group passed by. Tom looked so tense that Schofield wondered if he was holding his breath, his hand holding onto his knife like it was a lifeline.

After a few minutes without hearing anything that sounded like a human, Tom relaxed and stretched out on the dirt, letting out a long sign. “That was fucking tense, huh?”

Schofield nodded and let his head fall against the tree trunk, taking in a deep breath as his heartbeat slowed. Tom still had the knife, but at that moment he wasn’t as worried as he should have been. Tom _wanted_ to travel with Schofield, didn’t he?

“You gave me my knife back,” Tom said, and even though it was a statement he was clearly puzzled. “I don’t understand why.”

Schofield didn’t know why either, it just seemed right. Of course he still didn’t trust Tom completely, but maybe just enough to rely on him for the little things. Maybe. He needed to be smart, needed to rely on his instincts and his brain. They had got him this far, and they said that in a fight two people with knives was better than one person with a knife. Schofield shrugged. “If we’re walking together, we should both be armed.” Tom nodded in agreement.

They walked until they reached a house at around an hour until sunset. Tom had spotted it on the top of a hill, and it seemed far enough from the road that there could be some supplies still there. As they neared it, Schofield started to get nervous. Yes, the place _looked_ abandoned, but what if people were there? Today had been so hard, and he was fucking exhausted. Nonetheless, he stopped Tom in the front yard. 

“I’ll check it. Stay outside.” Schofield said. He didn’t know why he said it, it just seemed right. He was older, he was obviously more experienced, he should be the one to check the house. Schofield didn’t want Tom to walk into someone’s camp and get his brains blown out. It was better if he did it himself.

Schofield swept the house quickly, not stopping to look at the peeling floral wallpaper or the picture frames hanging in the hall. It was a small house, and even though it had been raided of supplies, it was relatively clean of debris and wreckage. It was a good place to spend the night.

“Looks good,” he told Tom, and they headed inside. “Still has its furniture and everything.”

They sat at the kitchen table and split a can of baked beans for dinner. Schofield ate first, barely eating a third of the can before giving it to Tom. He didn’t usually have an appetite, and it seemed like the younger man needed food more than he did.

“It’s fucking cold,” Tom said, rubbing his hands together and breaking Schofield’s train of thought. “Why does it always get so much colder at night?”

“It’s December.”

Tom scowled. “Yeah, but still. I used to have a good coat but I… lost it. Fucking lost it and now it’s cold as fuck. Please tell me this place has some blankets or something. Fuck I could use a good nights sleep because I know you won’t murder me or anything. And this place has _real_ beds right? Damn that sounds _nice_.” Tom laughed and went back to shoveling his face with beans.

Fuck. When Schofield had walked through the house, he had made a quick list of all the rooms. There was the kitchen, a living room, a small dining room with a big wooden table in the center. Upstairs there was a bathroom, a small office, and a bedroom. One bedroom, with one bed in it.

Tom sensed Schofield’s panic and looked at him. “What?”

“There’s uh… there’s only one bed,” Schofield blushed for some god awful reason, and hoped that it was too dark for Tom to see. Why was he _blushing_ at the thought of sharing a bed with someone. And why was he even thinking about the possibility of sharing a bed with _Tom_? Why the fuck would he make himself that vulnerable, and to someone he just met? He would sleep on the fucking floor like a sane person.

“Oh!” Tom said and immediately looked down at his soup. “Well, I mean, we could always share? I mean, unless you don’t want to I mean why _would_ you? You basically just met me and I can just sleep on the floor or something.” This man had no fucking filter, but somehow Schofield found it kind of nice to not be surrounded by silence all the time.

“Don’t care.” he shrugged. Schofield did care, he cared very much, but wasn’t going to let Tom know that. If worse came to worse, he could just stay awake the whole night, knife in hand. If Tom didn’t make a move to kill him, maybe Schofield would consider officially sticking around. He hated to admit it, but despite the distrust between the both of them, he slightly enjoyed Tom’s company. And when he thought about it, it was only one night. Plus, Tom was right, it was freezing out. Human contact could be warm, not even contact, but some semblance of closeness could rid the chill in his bones.

After some bickering, Schofield and Tom reached the inevitable conclusion of sharing a bed. Schofield had to keep reminding himself why: it was cold out. It was cold out and Tom’s body heat would keep him warm, and vice versa.

Tom was certainly respectful, but he didn’t seem to understand Schofield’s hesitance. Didn’t understand why he jumped when Tom’s arm brushed past him and almost touched him, why Schofield insisted that he should be the one to sleep with his back to the wall instead of Tom.

So there he was, covered in a thick blanket with his back pressed against the wall, eyes staring forward at the back of Tom’s head. Jesus, the man was already asleep. How the fuck could he do that? How could he feel safe enough to turn his back to Schofield, to fall asleep in his presence? Tom Blake was a person who Schofield couldn’t wrap his head around.

Everything was happening too fast for Schofield. First he met someone who wasn’t violent. Fine. He could deal with another person being around. But Tom was friendly, and so desperate for any kind of human contact. Schofield had been on his own for three years, and now he was sharing a bed with someone he met a fucking day ago.

Schofield just didn’t want Tom to fucking _touch him_ , didn’t want his breath to touch Schofield’s skin, didn’t want Tom to steal all of his supplies or forcefully run a knife between his ribs while he was unconscious or try and take advantage while he was sleeping. So he stayed awake, until the thin hours of morning when he could barely keep his eyes open. Staying awake all of last night had taken its toll on him, even though he wouldn’t like to admit it. How long could he stay awake and also stay sharp? Tom slept peacefully beside him, and as Schofield stared at the other man’s back, his mind racing, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

\---------------

Schofield dreamed he was walking in a forest. It was dark, the only light coming from a flashlight he held in his hand. There was wind blowing through the trees, rattling the branches together. It sounded like people, like footsteps, like whispers.

 _Schofield_.

There. Somewhere there were people, calling his name. They wanted to get him, wanted to finish him off and leave him to rot amongst the underbrush. They were close.

 _Schofield_.

He ran. He didn’t know where, but he had to get away. He could hear them now, feet heavy on the forest floor. They were yelling, yelling for him. What they would do when they found him, what they would do until he begged for death, and still. They wouldn’t relent. He knew from experience. It couldn’t happen again.

 _Schofield_.

The forest began to fight against him. His feet tripped on roots and overhanging branches cut at his face. He could hear the people now, and _fuck_ they were _so close_. They were so close and he had to get away, couldn’t let them find him. He tripped on another root and fell, scraping his face on the dirt. His flashlight fell out of his hands and onto the ground in front of him. He tried to get up, but he found he couldn’t. Something was holding him down, wrapping around his legs and arms. Roots. This couldn’t be happening, he had to get out. Had to get out of the roots that were looping around his body, and had to get away before he was found. He struggled in their grasp, trying to break out, but the roots kept getting thicker. He couldn’t break free.

_Schofield!_

Hands. Hands replaced the roots and they were dragging him back, dragging him away from the small beam of light in front of him. Hands all over his legs and arms and chest and head, pulling him back, pulling him towards something terrible.

“Schofield!”

Schofield woke with a start but there were still hands there was still someone yelling. His knife was in his hand before he knew what he was doing, and he jumped on the person with their fucking _hands_ on on him, his knife to their throat. No one would fucking _touch_ him again would never _hurt_ him again he wouldn’t let it fucking happen.

“Woah! Hey, Schofield, hey. It’s okay. It’s me. _Please_ .” said Tom. _Tom_. There was so much fear, so much caution in his voice.

“Hey. Put the knife down, okay? Schofield, please?” The knife? Oh _fuck_ the knife. He slowly lowered the knife and climbed off of Tom. He let the knife clatter to the floor and staggered away from the bed. What the fuck did he just do, what did he _almost_ do? It had felt so damn real, the hands, the people, the shouting. And the fear. The fear was still real.

“I’m sorry.” Schofield whispered. “I need some time.” He ran out of the room, head in his hands, breath quick and uneven. Schofield just needed some more time, as if three years wasn’t fucking long enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Also, I have a tumblr if people are interested in reblogged broadway gifs and political memes! Follow me @ badass-bluejay :)


	3. Two years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! A chapter! I worked really hard on this so I hope y'all like it!  
> Huge shoutout to maddie, nev, jamie, and all the wonderful people on the second devons server.  
> trigger warnings: mentions of violence (still a given), illness, injuries, death, alcohol, and getting drunk to forget your problems like a bro!

When Joseph Blake opened his eyes it was almost sunset, and he didn’t know where he was. It took a couple tries to open his eyes and keep them open, he kept squinting as the sun’s rays hit his eyes. He was lying on his back, _somewhere_ , and his whole body hurt like hell. There was grass underneath him.

His head felt like it was one big bruise, his chest felt tight and it was difficult to breath, and there was a gash on his thigh that throbbed like hell. But he was alive. He was alive and _holy shit_ was he glad to be alive.

He sat up and immediately regretted it. His whole head spun, little static dots appearing around the edges of his vision. His limbs felt tingly, felt numb, but he had to get up. Joe had to keep moving.

There was a structure next to him, a wooden fence, and he crawled up it and finally was standing. But his feet didn’t feel firm. In fact, they didn’t even feel like they were touching the ground. He started to sway, head heavy and unsure which way was up and which way was down. Joe lost his grip on the fence and fell like a rock down to earth with a thud, face down. 

Suddenly: footsteps. Coming closer, across the soft grass. Someone was coming someone was _coming to get him_ . He turned his head, trying to move his body. _Get up, Joe_ . His vision started to blur, to fill with more little dots. His head, _fuck_ , his head was killing him but he had to get up. He had to get away, had to stay alive had to make it back to his brother.

A sound of hinges squeaking, and the footsteps came to a stop by Joe’s head. 

“Fucking hell.”

He felt arms around his shoulders, and the person haphazardly flipped Joe onto his back. Something was moving right in front of his face, but he couldn’t see it. The person spoke, but all Joe could hear was a garbled sound.

“Hey fucker, you in there?!” he said again, and Joe could finally make out the words. The thing in front of his face, a _hand_ , moved again. All Joe could do was nod, and even that made him groan.

“Right, well…” said the man, unsure what to do. “Are you ah… I don’t know, are you a murderer?” he chuckled. “I mean, that’s a stupid question… but I’m not gonna let a fucking _murderer_ come into my house, you know?” Joe didn’t understand what was going on. Who was this person, where was he, who was this guy? Everything _hurt_ and he just wanted to fall asleep and sleep forever. His eyes started to close.

“Hey!” He shook Joe’s shoulders, dragging him back into reality. “Don’t uh, don’t die. Okay? Just, just hang in there.” Joe tried to nod but wasn’t sure if he actually did. As the man struggled but eventually pulled him upright, Joe could faintly see where he was. There was green, as far as he could see. A long brown line cutting through the field, which he assumed was the fence he had seen earlier. A dark shape in the distance. A house? He had mentioned a house.

The man draped Joe’s arm over his shoulder and started the long process of hauling him over to the building across the field, muttering a colorful selection of curses along the way. And even though his skull felt like it was shattering into a million pieces and his leg ached every time he dared to put weight on it, his mind zoned out, wandering away from his body like there was nothing keeping it tethered. Joe stopped feeling his arms, his legs, felt them slowly drift away too. His vision started to fade and he could hear ringing in his ears.

Even though the sensation lasted for no more than a moment, it was somehow so _peaceful_ , like holding a breath underwater and hearing nothing but the bubbles floating up towards the surface. Joe knew he should be afraid, knew he was losing consciousness, but he couldn’t seem to care. Somewhere far away, a man was yelling. Joe thought there might have been hands holding him. Might have been ground beneath his head, but it didn’t matter. Everything was quiet and blank and somehow, he desperately didn’t want it to end, and then he was greeted by emptiness.

\---------------

Joe drifted in and out of consciousness, trying to grab onto pieces of reality but eventually was pulled back under. Sometimes there were hands holding him, then there was a pillow beneath his head. Once there was even someone speaking, but all Joe could focus on was how _nice_ it felt to sink down into that pillow. Like floating on a goddamn cloud.

When he finally woke up for good, it was dark out. Joe was lying down on something, covered in something warm, and fuck, was that a _blanket_? He sat up, sat up way too quickly and lost his balance, the room spinning and his head feeling like it would burst from the inside out. He put a hand out to steady himself and only felt open air, and he was suddenly falling. He landed on the wood floor, his whole body aching.

“Hey! Oh fuck, hey! It’s alright.”

Hurried footsteps, and a man’s face appeared above Joe. Greasy dark hair, brown eyes, an unlit cigarette dangled from his lips. He didn’t look familiar. He came closer, and Joe tried his best to back away. Where the fuck was he? Who was this guy?

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright,” said the man, backing away and putting his hands up. “I’m not gonna hurt you, okay?” His hands were empty, and his tone seemed genuine. He reached up to his mouth, took the cigarette, and tucked it behind his ear.

“Do you remember before? You were by the fence, you passed out?” he asked, and Joe shook his head. He remembered running through the dark, cutting his hands on branches and rocks. Joe remembered telling his brother to run, that he would hold them back. He remembered their boots on his ribs, how the group of people flickered in the firelight and seemed to morph into demons. Judging by the dimness of the room he was now in, it seemed like night. Had he been out and entire day?

The man seemed to sense his confusion and put on a reassuring smile. “Alright, well. I’m gonna help you back onto the couch. Is that okay?” He held out his hands like he was going to touch Joe, but he didn’t. He waited.

Joe nodded and the man helped him back onto the couch, now in a sitting position. He pulled the blanket over Joe’s legs and sat down beside him. Now that they were closer, Joe could see the dark circles under his eyes, and could smell the heavy stench of alcohol. 

“I’m Leslie,” said the man after an awkward silence. “I live here. I mean, it’s not my house but… I live here.” He pulled his cigarette from behind his ear and fiddled with it in his hands, unsure of what to do. Eventually he decided against it and discarded it within a jacket pocket.

“I’m Joe. Joe Blake,” said Joe. “I obviously do not live here.”

That earned a laugh from Leslie. It wasn’t a loud or obvious laugh, more of a chuckle really, but he had meant it. It was a nice change, to meet someone you didn’t know and have them treat you like a human being. No guns cocked, knives out, teeth bared.

“Good to meet you, Joe. Also, with all due respect, you kinda look like shit,” Leslie said. Joe hadn’t seen himself in a mirror, but the other man was probably right. “Your face looks pretty fucked up, do you mind if I take a look at your injuries?” 

Joe nodded. He didn’t remember everything that had happened, but he knew he fought off more than four people, and had barely survived. Leslie got up and disappeared into another room, returning a minute later with a toolbox that had the words “FOR EMERGENCIES” scrawled in terrible handwriting on the side.

“Right, let’s see what’s here.” Leslie opened up the toolbox to reveal a mess of various medical supplies. Loose bandaids, gauze, prescription pill bottles, and a lot of advil. Leslie grabbed some gauze and rooted around until he found some alcohol wipes.

“This is the good shit,” he said, and ripped open the package. “It’s gonna hurt a little, but it will clean it. Okay?” Joe nodded as Leslie painstakingly cleaned the small scratches on his arms and face. “Even though they’re small, infection is a bitch.” Leslie muttered, more to himself than to Joe.

He then reached the gash on Joe’s forehead and frowned. “What did that?” he asked, getting out another wipe and tentatively dabbing at the injury. Joe winced and balled his hand up in the blanket, squeezing hard. “A boot, I think.” Joe answered. Last night had been a blur, but he thought he remembered the image of a thick boot coming down on his head. But most of what he could remember was pain and the feeling of his heart in his ears.

“Shit,” was all Leslie had to add.

“I need to find my brother,” Joe mumbled as Leslie cleaned and bandaged the cut on his leg. “How long has it been since you found me?”  
Leslie frowned. “About a day, I think. Why? Where’s your brother?” 

A day? It had been a day lying in this house, a day passed out in the field. Two whole days without Tom, who could be panicking, injured, or worse. No no no, Joe couldn’t think like that. Tom had to be alive, he had to. He just did.

“My brother, he… we got separated and I need to go I need to find him,” he said, panic starting to build again. Leslie just shook his head and chuckled, gesturing at Joe, at the gash on his head and the wound on his leg.

“Not to be rude, but you really look like absolute shit, and you probably have a concussion too. You need to rest.” Leslie said. Joe didn’t like it one bit, but he knew Leslie was right.

\---------------

It took a week until Joe was ready to travel. He protested after a day, saying he was fine, but he could barely walk to the bathroom and Leslie made him agree on waiting. A single week of hell, of wondering if Tom was okay. A week of trying to slip out of the house only to have Leslie drag him back inside, scolding him. He couldn’t find his brother if he couldn’t walk, couldn’t help him if he wasn’t able to help himself. So Joe waited, as the cuts on his leg and head scabbed over and his headache got worse by the day.

One day, when he and Leslie were sitting on the porch, two teenage boys came by the house. Leslie seemed to know them, and he invited one of them, a redhead, inside. The other, a blond and younger looking, stayed outside. He didn’t speak to Joe but kept an eye trained on him, fiddling with the worn hem of his jacket. He didn’t seem nervous though—he looked dreadfully apprehensive and Joe didn’t like it.

After a few minutes of the kid pretending he wasn’t watching Joe and gripping onto some sort of a weapon in his pocket, perhaps a knife, Leslie and the other kid reappeared. The redhead was holding a milk crate, filled with odds and ends and vegetables that must have come from Leslie’s garden. He grinned at Joe and beckoned for the blond to follow him, and the two left without verbally acknowledging Joe’s existence.

Leslie sat next to Joe, and they watched the boys walk away down the hill, two dark shapes that grew smaller as they wadded through the green grass.

“Who were they?” Joe asked as Leslie lit a cigarette.

“The redhead is Kilgour, he’s like a fucking grim reaper, that one. Scavenges and then buries bodies, but no one fucks with him because he has the items you can’t just find lying around, you know?” Leslie gestured with his cigarette. “Cigarettes, alcohol, weapons, just random shit that people keep close. Kinda fucked up but hey, who am I to judge?” He laughed, Joe didn’t. It _was_ fucked up, stealing someone’s possessions, desecrating their body. He didn’t like it one fucking bit.

“And the blond guy is his boy toy or some shit, don’t know who he is, Kilgour says he just showed up one day and never left.” He shrugged. “Fuck if I care, though. We trade, everyone leaves happy.”

Joe nodded, but it didn’t sit right with him, what the boys were doing. If he died in the middle of nowhere, he wouldn’t want someone rooting through his pockets and taking whatever they thought would sell. He wouldn’t want anyone doing that to Tom… _no_ . Tom wasn’t dead, Joe couldn’t think like that. Not when he didn’t have any proof. No one was fucking with Tom’s corpse in the middle of nowhere and sliding off his rings and cutting off his fingers if they didn’t slip off easy because Tom _wasn’t dead_. He wasn’t dead. Joe had to believe that.

The next few days were torture, but after Joe demonstrated his walking abilities to Leslie, he finally agreed that it was time to go.

Joe knew the warehouse wasn’t too far from Leslie’s house, he had run the distance in a few hours while injured, so it couldn’t be too far of a walk. He told Leslie of a river he recalled seeing near it, and they were able to figure out the direction to head in. Leslie packed a small bag if they somehow had to stay overnight and they headed out.

Joe’s leg gave a sharp burst of pain whenever he put weight on it, but as he and Leslie walked the whole area just turned into a dull ache. He could deal with that. Leslie chattered about everything and anything, and Joe tried to listen but his mind was elsewhere. It was with Tom, running through every single possibility, the good and the bad.

Eventually, they neared the warehouse and all Joe could feel was adrenaline bubbling in his veins. This was it, no more uncertainty. Either he would find Tom or he wouldn’t. He didn’t know which would be worse, seeing his baby brother in a pool of his own blood or seeing nothing at all. He shook his head and kept walking. Tom could be alive, jesus _christ_ Tom could still be alive and Joe would run to him and hug him and never fucking let him go.

Joe pushed the door in slowly, and it swung noisily open. He held his breath, trying to hear some sort of response inside. He didn’t. He took his knife from his belt and moved inside the warehouse, walking slowly down the large central room towards the back room he and Tom had made camp in. Leslie followed, rifle in hand.

Their feet echoed on the concrete floor and suddenly Joe was _there_ and oh fuck he didn’t want to open the door, didn’t want to see. But he had to. He took a deep breath and stepped forward, opening the door and taking in the scene in front of him.

“Joe?” Leslie asked, hand tightening on his gun. Joe didn’t hear him. The room was a wreck, and everything that hadn’t been taken was either destroyed or covered in blood. There was so much blood, and no bodies. _Why weren’t there any bodies?_ There was a pile of something under one of the large windows, and Joe’s blood ran cold. It might be… _fuck_ he didn’t want to think about it but he knew, at that moment. Somehow, he knew Tom was gone, even if it wasn’t his body even if it wasn’t anything, Joe _knew_. He walked over anyway.

It wasn’t a body. It was a jacket, a blue winter coat with fake fur lining the hood. Tom’s jacket. It was torn in multiple places, smooth lines, like from a knife. It was covered in blood. This was the last thing he had seen Tom wearing, when Joe told him to run and turned to face their attackers. This was the last thing he had of Tom.

“I killed him,” Joe mumbled, unsure if the words were even coming out. He sank to the floor, barely noticing Leslie behind him. He tenderly touched the jacket, and little flakes of dried blood came off, stained his fingers. It sunk in violently, like a drowning man letting out the last breath of air in his lungs, like a sucker punch that Joe had seen coming but still hadn’t prepared for. Tom was dead. Tom was gone. And it was all his fucking fault. “Holy shit, I killed him.”

“Killed who?” Leslie asked. There was a hint of nervousness in his voice that Joe hadn’t heard before. “Joe, what did you?”

“My brother, he—” Joe couldn’t. He couldn’t say it, couldn’t admit what happened, and admit that it was his fault. Leslie would know what he did.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Leslie crouched down next to Joe. “Just… tell me what happened.”

Joe took a deep breath.

“My brother and I, we were staying here, we got attacked and… I’m sorry, I can’t.” Joe felt like his heart was slowly being crushed, all the little parts squelching and extinguishing themselves. It was all too much.

“Okay, let’s get out of here,” said Leslie, and arms gripped Joe and pulled him up. He was standing but he didn’t fell steady, felt like the fucking floor had been pulled from underneath him and he was staggering in midair like a cartoon character. “Come on, let’s go.”

Leslie half guided, half dragged him outside. Something inside Joe didn’t want to leave, He couldn’t think, couldn’t focus on anything except for the blood on the floor and Leslie’s hands keeping him upright. So he let Leslie pull him out of the building, and he stared down at the grass as Leslie sat him down.  
“Joe, are you okay?”

It took him a moment to understand what Leslie was saying, and Joe shook his head. He certainly wasn’t okay.

“Alrighty, well,” Leslie sat down next to him. “When you’re ready, if you could try and explain, that would be pretty fucking grand.”

They sat there, Joe absentmindedly picking at grass, twisting the stalks around his fingers before tearing them up into little pieces and letting them fall back to the ground. It was calming, repetitive. The actions grounded him. He was outside. He was breathing. He was alive. Tom was dead. 

Joe took a deep breath and lifted his head up to face Leslie.

“My brother and I, we were staying here. We got attacked by a group. I don’t… I don’t really know what happened. I told him to run and I tried to hold them off,” Joe took in a shaky breath. He would not cry, he would figure things out and deal with his emotions when he was alone. Or never. Never would also work. “I tried and… well you know they got the better of me, fucked me up but I escaped, and I thought he did too. But he didn’t.”

Joe continued, explaining how he had tried to hold them back for Tom, tried so fucking hard, and he’d really thought that Tom had gotten away, at least had some sliver of hope until they reached that fucking horrible room. He told Leslie about how he’d gotten hold of a gun long enough to get the upper hand and run, run through the woods and as far as his legs could carry him until he’d passed out on Leslie’s land.

Leslie listened patiently, and at one point rested his hand on Joe’s arm for comfort. He nodded along and let Joe have time to breath when it became too much.

“I’m sorry,” was all he said after Joe was done. Leslie understood, that sometimes kind words and don’t work, that sometimes you need to grieve and regret.

They walked back to the house in mostly silence. Leslie had reached out a few times, tried to start a conversation, but Joe didn’t respond. He was still trying to process everything. He was alive, he was alright and still had breath in his body and blood in his veins, and Tom didn’t. Tom was dead, gone, and was never coming back.

They entered the house and Joe shuffled towards the stairs, fully intent on locking himself in his room and crying himself to sleep. 

“Hey, you know what always makes me feel better?” Leslie asked. Joe turned to tell him off, and saw Leslie was holding a large bottle of vodka. “I have quite a large array. Let’s drink.”

Joe considered the offer. Maybe it was selfish, but he didn’t want to think about Tom, didn’t want to think about the dried blood staining the wood floor. Didn’t want to think about Tom’s stupid smile when he was nearing the punchline of a stupid joke, the way he always knew how to cheer Joe up with the right words. 

“Fuck yeah.”

The night passed quickly, with him and Leslie raiding the entire house for Leslie’s various stashes of liquor. They put the bottles on the coffee table in the living room, and Leslie brought out the glasses. Leslie poured him a drink, another, and then another, and then why stop? It felt nice, to have drinks with a friend and have bullshit smalltalk and ignore all the hurt and loss. It was easier, and _fuck_ , it was selfish but maybe Joe deserved just a little easy after all the shit he had to deal with.

After awhile Leslie was sprawled out on the floor, giving a tipsy rendition of some Taylor Swift song. Joe joined in, even though he’d only heard it a few times on the radio but it was _fun_ and who cared if he fumbled with his words and laughed whenever he fucked up.

“This is so nice,” Joe mumbled, slouching down into an armchair.

Leslie nodded and lifted himself into a sitting position. “I’m glad. It’s better than this morning, that’s for fucking sure.”

Joe frowned. Why the fuck did Leslie have to bring all that shit up? He was drinking to forget, to feel warm and fucking _happy_ because when he was wasted he forgot to think about the important things like how his brother was dead and it was all his fault and now he was all alone in the middle of nowhere at the end of the world.

“Fuck you,” he mumbled. “Don’t talk about my brother.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Yes you were! You fucking brought this morning up and made me think about him and, now, I can’t get it out of my fucking _mind!_ I can’t get the thought of my brother bleeding out in a fucking ditch somewhere! And I wasn’t there to save him!” Joe put his head in his hands. Everything was rushing back, and there was no emotional filter now and he was going to cry _oh fuck_ he was going to cry in front of Leslie, and he would never be taken seriously again, because Joe Blake was a fucking baby who got drunk on small amounts of cheap liquor and cried about dead people.

“Why couldn’t… why couldn’t I have died instead?” Joe wondered out loud. “If I took the knife for him and he ran then, well, he would be here, wouldn’t he?”

“Hey, I’m sorry—”

“—He was… he was so _good_ ,” Joe wiped at his eyes and hoped that Leslie couldn’t see the tears that almost spilled down his cheeks. “He didn’t deserve this.”

“Yeah well, the good ones die first,” Leslie gave a chuckle, but nothing was funny. There was so much venom in his laugh, so much disgust and hate. At first Joe felt offended, like Leslie was somehow mocking Tom. But as Leslie stumbled to the coffee table to fill his drink, everything clicked in Joe’s mind, and it was like he was thinking the clearest thoughts he had ever thought. Leslie’s laughs and comments were so full of self hatred, full of guilt. Leslie _hated_ that he was still alive, hated that he was still living and breathing and making mistakes and getting drunk when so many others were gone. 

“You did your best. You fought for someone, for something good. You deserve better than this shit. Something better than a dead brother and a fucking coward for companions,” Leslie said. He filled up his glass, stared at the way the light filtered through the liquid and the patterns on the sides of the glass.

Joe stood up to argue, he wanted to yell at Leslie, scream until his throat turned red and raw just because he could. Leslie was so kind, Leslie was smart and kind and took pity on him and helped him. But his vision spun before he opened his mouth and he sat down hard, his arms gripping the armrests.

“I was sick,” Leslie slurs, flopping down on the couch. Liquid sloshed and spilled from his glass but he didn’t pay it any attention. Joe watched it slowly seep into the rug, turning the little gray threads dark. “Did you know that? I was fucking _sick_. The whole bloody town was sick, we were all dropping like flies. So I locked myself in my house with as much liquor as I could find and I drank like it was the end of the world. I don’t remember what happened after. It could have been days, it could have been weeks.” He took another long sip and closed his eyes, leaning his head back. He was still for so long Joe thought he could have been asleep, except for the slight tremors in his hands that caused the liquid in the glass to move.

“Kilgour found me in a grave,” he said without opening his eyes. “He found me in a fucking mass grave someone had dug. It was a glorified hole in the fucking ground, stuffed with bodies and blood and fucking… _people_. I don’t know how I got there, and I don’t know how I survived. But I did.” He opened his eyes and looked towards Joe, but not at him. He looked past him, through him, like he didn’t want to acknowledge the other man’s presence. Or maybe he just couldn’t focus his eyes. Who knew? Joe certainly didn’t.

“I wish I hadn’t, you know?” His eyes were glassy with tears but they did not fall, they stayed, and shuddered, and after a moment he rubbed them away with his sleeve. “But that’s life, isn’t it? That’s fucking life! And it fucking _sucks_!”

“Hey, hey hey hey,” Joe staggered to Leslie and sat down next to him, but he overestimated the distance and found himself basically leaning against Leslie. “It’s okay. Leslie, it’s okay.” His mind was muddled and his limbs didn’t feel grounded, but he needed to comfort Leslie. Needed to make him understand that he didn’t deserve all this shit. All he could muster out was some generic heartwarming bullshit. It didn’t feel genuine.

“It’s not your fault.”

“The fuck do you know?” Leslie scoffed and leaned closer to Joe. Maybe he was trying to be intimidating, but all Joe could focus on was the closeness. Their noses were almost touching, and Leslie’s body was warm against his own.

Joe wanted to kiss him. So he did. Joe closed the space between them, pressed his lips and chest and soul against Leslie and he wanted to never let go. He needed Leslie’s warmth, to remind him he wasn’t alone. 

He couldn’t tell if Leslie was just desperate, or felt bad for him, or was more inebriated than Joe thought he was, but he kissed back. He tasted of cheap liquor and nothing else, and Joe was okay with that. There were hands in his hair, warm, longing hands that felt perfect and Joe couldn’t imagine things any other way. 

Joe didn’t know why, but all he knew was he wanted more. Wanted to lose himself in Leslie’s lips and let the alcohol stop him from second guessing. Joe wanted to forget. He grabbed Leslie’s shirt collar, pulling him on top of himself for another kiss.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Leslie muttered, finally pulling away. Joe followed him, trying to press his lips back against Leslie. He already missed Leslie’s warmth, the contact that reminded him that he wasn’t alone. Leslie’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “Joe, you’re drunk, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” Joe slurred. He wanted to kiss Leslie, he knew that. He wanted to stop feeling sorry for himself and for Tom and all this _shit_ and just focus on where Leslie’s mouth and hands would be next.

Leslie shook his head and got up, straightening his shirt. “No, Joe you’re completely wasted. You’ll regret this in the morning, okay? Just sleep it off.”

“Fuck you,” Joe mumbled. “You… you what? You think I’ll regret kissing you because you think that, what… you don’t deserve it, is that it?” He regretted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth, that wasn’t what he meant to say he meant to convince Leslie to come back to kiss him again and hold him tighter. He’d meant to say that _he_ didn’t deserve Leslie, not the other way around, that they were both fucked up people who needed each other and why the fuck couldn’t Leslie see that?

Leslie took a deep breath and didn’t meet Joe’s eye. “Sleep it off,” was all he said, and he left, the sound of the back door swinging open and closed following his departure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alexa, play joseph by autoheart (an amazing song by an amazing and underrated band) and give these boys some HUGS anyway. I hope y'all liked it! Thanks so much for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> If you got it this far: congratulations and thank you! Btw if I didn't make it clear enough, the other man is the one and only Thomas Blake. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about this concept and hope to continue to flesh it out, as well as include as many 1917 characters into this AU as I can. I have no idea when I will update but trust me, I'm always clickity clacking away on my computer. Thanks for reading :)


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